Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2

Due to the popularity of Trauma Center, Atlus has decided to make a sequel to the hit medical game. The game still follows our old protagonist Derek Stiles, a young and gifted doctor with a strange and magical ability that slows down time called the "Healing Touch", and his assistant Angie Thompson. Delphi is back and they now seek revenge. Equipped with new strains of GUILT, they truly are baffling our heroes. Not only that, but previous patients of GUILT are also experiencing Post GUILT Syndromes (PGS). You first meet Stiles in the Africa's Costigar working at a military base. Here, he will meet his new apprentice Adel Tulba. However, the moment is short-lived as Stiles and his team is quickly called back to Caduceus USA to deal with PGS. Of course, new things pop up that will influence Caduceus's battle with GUILT both for the good and the bad such as partnering up with an ally or finding themselves a new team of rivals to compete with. The game, in general, moves from simple operations to more and more stranger cases as you advance through the game.

If you're familiar with Adult Swim's Amateur Surgeon, then you'll find Trauma Center's gameplay to be very similar. However, you're no longer dealing with random house tools to deal with your operating needs. Instead, you're actually working with real operation tools (well, as real as things can be in a video game at least). Here, you'll meet the trusty scalpel, sutures, drain, antibiotic gel, scalar laser, and stabilizer. Learn and master them for they will be your keys to success in this game. This game measures your mastery at speed, reflexes, memory, and your dexterity. If you're not very quick or accurate with your stylus, then be warned that you'll most likely have to work through a specific operation over and over again before you finally finish it. The operations are hardly easy and you'll always be pressured for time, particularly when you're dealing with more than one patient or GUILT or even suturing countless lacerations.

The tactiles work but, when you're trying to speed through an operation, some annoying things do occur. For example, some lacerations appear to near the controls and I end up accidentally switching tools when trying to suture them. Another annoying thing is that sometimes I don't draw up enough stabilizer or blood using the syringe or drain. These are the two main things that you might want to watch out for when playing this game. Other than that, everything else works.

When it comes to the storytelling, the game is good at its storytelling, mixing in medical terms with a bunch of political tensions, war crimes, and what not. It's very much like a medical drama. The only thing that bothers me is that the storytelling is very long and it can often be awhile before you finally get to pick up your scalpel and begin the operation. Pressing the Select button will skip through the story but, even then, it's really just like watching a fast-forward version of a video. There's really no Skip button that will lead you directly to the operation.

The graphics are nice with vibrant colors for the storyboards. There are some lighting and shading effects. When it comes to the people, the graphics are really just 2-D portraits. I wish that they could have done a little more to these portraits, such as animations or making a more realistic effect. There aren't any changes in expression unless the character is in extreme pain or extremely angry.

The music is okay with a few nice tunes. I suggest keeping the volume on while playing only because the sounds will help you during your operations. If you're ever stuck as to what to do, Angie will give you a voice-over of which tool you should use. You'll also find the voice-over to be useful in other experiences in which I won't dwell on the details. You can also use the sounds to hear when new things appear in the operation such as when new lacerations appear. Other than that, the annoying thing about this is that when your patient's vitals start to get low, there is a constant beeping sound which always gives me a headache when playing and will only add more to the pressure. When doing the storytelling, the character voice-overs often don't match what they're saying. It's all very general.

All in all, Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 is a must-get game. You'll see some rather intimidating operations but there's something about their difficulty that makes the game very addicting. You'll feel very accomplished when you finally are able to complete an operation. Ironically, I played this game while I was sick with the flu. Here I am curing others when I can't even cure myself. It's also sort of scary to think that, if this were in real-life, how many patients would have died under my hands due to my failure at getting the speed needed to complete these operations. Thank goodness that this is only a game. But, back to the game itself, the gameplay is very addicting and very challenging. I worked on the Easy levels and even then I still found them to be a challenge. Sure, there could have been some more features but overall this game is worth your attention. So go out there, get yourself a copy of Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2, and save those patients!